Tea Shop BeLoved

Air is one of those series that I can pretty much only watch during the hot summer months. I didn’t go watch and rewatch the series per se, but Aozora came up on my foobar playlist this evening and reminded me about the series (and the fact that the first R1 DVD is going to be out on my birthday).

I wouldn’t come out and say Air was one of my all-time favorite series, but it definitely was a memorable one. I first watched it a couple summers ago, in the midst of my anime resurgence and was completely blown away by it. Up until that point, my anime credentials were extremely limited and narrow, so watching something so beautifully animated, well told, and emotional, blew me away. I don’t even remember how I ended up picking up the series in the first place, but I did. I do remember how painful it was downloading it though… I hadn’t figured out how to get my ports opened up on our router, so torrents were painfully slow (1 episode a night basically). I had managed downloaded episodes 1-10 over the previous week using my old laptop and my brother’s computer, so I decided to start watching while the last 2 episodes were downloading. I remember it being ridiculously hot that day in my room, but I got through a couple episodes. Later that night, I watched up to the point where we get to Kanna’s story and decided to stop there. I was already pretty hooked and I didn’t want to go any further without having the last episodes ready to go. The next day, the torrents were running… but at (something like) an ugly 2 kb/s. That night I stay up and watched the last half dozen or so episodes.

With the conclusion of episode 12, I really was left speechless. I had never really experienced anything like that in terms of my anime watching. Well, that’s not true, but the way it was portrayed and orchestrated made the “Goal” scene hands down one of the best anime moments ever. The CDRs that have Air on it are buried away in my closet in some random spindle, so getting them out to watch would be a crazy hassle. Did the next best thing and hit up the used-to-be-cool video streaming site. It still gets me every time. Both Kawakami Tomoko and Hisakawa Aya’s performances are spot on and the music just fits. Toss in Aozora and you better get that box of tissues or a clean sleeve.

Air brings back a lot of memories from that summer of 2005. Many good and many bad. There was a lot going on that summer and there was a lot on my plate at the time. I just happened to watch Air during a time in life that just a tad bit tougher than usual. It became a sentimental favorite, I think. Interestingly enough, tonight feels incredibly similar to the night I finished watching Air for the first time. It was around mid summer when I watched it too (it was during August though because I was getting ready to go on vacation and then a week later move back to San Francisco). I don’t know, maybe I’m just feeling reminiscent tonight… Nevertheless, Air is a series that reminds me of so many things, not only about my personal life, but also what makes anime good. I could pick apart a number of problems with Air (i.e., pacing and plot holes), but in the end, it’s a series that really has sentimental meaning for me. It just so happens that it’s really good too.